PM Modi’s Independence Day Speech: No new announcements, nothing on OROP

Those who expected new policy announcements particularly on One Rank One Pension were left disappointed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Independence Day speech from Red Fort in Delhi.

In his speech, which lasted for more than 90 minutes, PM Modi largely focussed talking about the ‘achievements’ of his government in the last 15 months.

He talked about his pet scheme Jan Dhan Yojna and how “17 crore people had opened their bank account under this scheme” adding that the banks’ doors for poor were shut by the past governments.

PM Modi said that the difference between his government and others was that he delivered while others didn’t.

He said the menace of corruption was eating the country like termite and he was committed to end it from the system. Modi claimed that the “effective steps” taken by him had already cleansed the system of corruption.

He said, “We’ve been in power for 15 minutes and there has not been a single allegation of corruption against any member of my government. That’s because I have taken effective steps to tackle the corruption. In one year CBI has filed 1800 corruption related cases. The number was 800 in the years before we came to power.”

PM Modi also highlighted his government’s achievement on convincing people to give their LPG subsidies adding that “20 lakh people have given up LPG gas subsidy.”

On Black Money, an issue on which he’s been facing a lot of heat from his political detractors, he said repeated his earlier statements that his government had formed an SIT within a week of coming to power.

He added, “On India’s insistence, G20 countries agreed to help us in recovering black money. America and other countries have even promised, they’ll pass information on black money to us. Efforts are on to bring black money back to India.”

On OROP, PM Modi said that he had accepted the demands but talks with ‘concerned people” were still on.

Modi’s non-committal approach on announcing a date for implementing OROP may not go down well with soldiers, who after Friday’s unfortunate events, were expecting the prime minister to announce a concrete policy.

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